[From Heirloom Roses Catalog 2001, p. 15: John Clements has been breeding roses since the late 1970s and has this to say about it...] Rose breeding, I feel, is more an art than a science. I feel an intense love of the beauty of the roses. Through years of trial and error with a lot of intuition and love I have combined the best of the English roses and many other forms of roses with special emphasis on fragrance, beauty and disease resistance. We [Heirloom Roses] grow about 10,000 seedlings each year, every one an individual. Out of these 10,000 in four years of evaluation only about five will be judged good enough to be named and introduced. We test them more strenuously than other breeders as they are never sprayed for insects or disease or fertilized. My feeling in this method is that only the finest will show both disease-resistance and vigor.